Wider school abuse redress scheme would involve ‘potentially enormous costs’, official documents stated

Broadening the State’s redress scheme for people abused in school would expose the exchequer to “unquantifiable and potentially enormous costs”, unpublished Government documents reveal.

The warning is contained in a draft briefing note on the recently announced inquiry into alleged abuse at Blackrock College and other prestigious private schools in Dublin, which was written while the inquiry was being designed.

Hundreds of men have come forward in recent months alleging abuse at Blackrock and elsewhere.

The briefing note outlines that the State’s existing redress scheme has a “limiting factor” – namely that only those who issued proceedings against the Minister before July 2021 can apply for it. “Any such scheme which is open more broadly to anyone who suffered abuse in a day school will arise in unquantifiable and potentially enormous costs to the exchequer,” the briefing note states.

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The emphasis placed by the department on the financial risk of a broader scheme comes at a time of increased focus on the issue of sexual abuse in schools, the State’s liability for what is alleged and the potential for redress for victims.

A spokeswoman for the department said it would be incorrect to infer a connection between the scheme and the current scoping inquiry into abuse at the schools, and that the note was only intended to summarise the department’s position on the scheme and the legal context for an incoming minister. However, the heading of the relevant section referred only to the scoping and establishment of the inquiry.

[ Q&A: How will Government inquiry into abuse at religious-run schools work? ]

More than 300 men have come forward alleging sexual abuse at Blackrock College and Willow Park, its junior school, in recent months, while other allegations have been made in recent months and years in relation to Terenure College, Castleknock College and Belvedere College. The Government approved the establishment of a scoping inquiry earlier this month.

Prof Conor O’Mahony, the State’s former special rapporteur on child protection, said that many of these men should be able to access an existing State redress scheme, but would be excluded because of the limiting eligibility criteria the State has put in place.

He said it would be “plainly discriminatory” not to include those who were abused at Blackrock College and elsewhere in the so-called O’Keeffe scheme, which was set up after the European Court of Human Rights found the State had a liability in the case of Louise O’Keeffe, who was abused at school in the 1970s. Prof O’Mahony and others, including the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, have strongly criticised the redress scheme and how it interprets the court ruling to govern eligibility for redress payments.

“People who suffered the same harm in the same defective system should receive the same redress,” Prof O’Mahony said.

[ Scoping inquiry announced into abuse at schools run by religious orders ]

“It is plainly discriminatory to exclude some abuse survivors from redress offered to others based on whether they sued the State before an arbitrary deadline of July 1st, 2021,” he said.

The Government agreed to establish a scoping inquiry earlier this month, which is expected to report in about eight months and is also likely to feature the question of compensation.

The briefing note was drawn up as part of a draft briefing pack for an incoming minister in December 2022, in case one was appointed in the ministerial reshuffle that month. Minister for Education Norma Foley was reappointed, so the draft was never published. It was released under the Freedom of Information Act.

It shows that officials believed the first phase of the Government’s response should involve work by officials to “secure records and assets of [religious] orders for potential future inquiries/redress”. The terms of reference for the inquiry signed off by the Government, however, refer to engagement with religious orders “to establish the level and extent of co-operation with any proposed inquiry”.

[ Data safety of child sexual abuse settlement records ‘in jeopardy’ ]

The document also outlined that decisions made by the Government in relation to the “scope and breadth” of any inquiry “will have a considerable impact on the work of the division and the resources of the Department of Education”.

It notes that “previous inquiries into related matters of institutional abuse have attracted controversy and resulted in calls for redress”.